LV minorities PUSH for help with jobs, education

Monday, Oct. 27, 2003 | 9:08 a.m.

More than 40 black Las Vegas residents pledged Sunday to open a chapter of the Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Southern Nevada to help minorities and women gain jobs, health benefits and education.

Jackson founded Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) in 1971, then changed the name to People United to Serve Humanity, continuing the work of the late Martin Luther King Jr.

Many of the people who came to Second Baptist Church, 500 W. Madison Ave., Sunday afternoon were veterans of the 1960s marches in Las Vegas on behalf of desegregation and for better housing and more jobs.

Long-time residents such as state Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas, Assemblyman Wendell Williams, D-Las Vegas, and the Rev. Jesse D. Scott joined efforts to launch a local chapter of Rainbow/ PUSH.

"We're looking at making America better and more inclusive," said Scott, the former head of the Las Vegas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "We feel no one should be left behind in growth and prosperity."

Neal said he supports the new chapter, which will bring to Las Vegas a national organization with 70 staff members into the struggle for better wages in the gaming industry, but he also believes in local control.

"There's always hope," Neal said after the three-hour meeting Sunday.

Williams, whose job at Las Vegas City Hall is at risk in an ongoing investigation over time cards submitted showing work for the city while he was at the Legislature, said he supports the new chapter.

"I've always supported it," Williams said. "We're looking to start a Las Vegas chapter. The Reverend Scott and others invited me here to offer support."

Williams' supporters say his problems are part of a racist campaign intended to destroy his political career.

Williams attended Sunday's meeting with his wife, Zelda.

Community leaders heard a litany of complaints from people who had lost their jobs, health benefits or couldn't get a home loan. Blacks and Hispanics are twice as likely to have their applications for home loans denied than whites in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, a national study said Friday.

Blacks and Hispanics hold only 474 out of 11,500 corporate board seats in Fortune 1000 companies, according to the coalition's Wall Street project, which presses for more black business leadership.

Erica Hawkins said she lost her job as a secretary. Would Rainbow/PUSH help her?

Belonging to a group such as the coalition would strengthen her hand, said Gary Flowers, vice president for programs at the Chicago headquarters of Rainbow/ PUSH.

"If today we can have public officials railroaded out of office, then when did civil rights days end?" Flowers asked, referring to Williams.

Flowers called for a level playing field for minorities.

"There comes a time when we have to hit the streets so the people in the suites can see us," Flowers said.

Nevada is a right-to-work state. " A right-to-work state is anti-union," Flowers said.

At the national level there is an open assault on organized labor, Flowers said.

"It's un-American and it is unfair," he said.

"We are fighting for one set of rules equally applied to all, and anything less is un-American," Flowers said.

A steering committee will be formed over the next few weeks, Rev. Willie Davis, pastor of Second Baptist Church, said. Davis, with retired Judge Wendy Cooley of Detroit, is helping to launch the Rainbow/PUSH chapter in Las Vegas.

"The purpose of Rainbow/PUSH is to defend, protect and gain civil rights," Cooley said, adding that her specialty is educating young people.

"We're not here to upstage anybody," Davis said, calling on black Las Vegas residents to join the chapter. "Whether we realize it or not, we're in trouble."